May 23, 2000
The
African Problem, and Us
A
BRIEF SUMMARY OF CHAOS
I've
written about Sierra
Leone and Zimbabwe,
saying that we are getting ourselves into almighty messes. However,
I think that we are missing the all-important point that the internationalists
tell us we miss, the big picture. The reason is not to show
that we need to intervene because Africa
can't hope to sort itself out, or to show it as a despairing
swamp that will never do well. I just want to demonstrate that the
course on which we are embarked is dangerous. There is a better
way, we just have to find the courage to accept that the peoples
of Africa are grown-ups, who will only act that way if we take them
seriously.
THE
FRONT OF THE MIND
Both
Sierra
Leone and Zimbabwe
have been boiling in the recent weeks. It is obvious that these
are not isolated cases. Just about the whole of Africa
seems to be in trouble. The conclusion has been drawn that the
Africans are helpless, in need
of benign guidance. To not accept this diagnosis of subnormal
African intelligence is to be bizarrely labeled
a racist, now sub-normality is equality and colonialism is independence,
just like freedom is slavery. On the other hand, there is the view
that Africa is an irrational mess, a heart of darkness, which will
drive us mad. Although I agree with the conclusion that Africa should
be left to itself, I disagree with the hopelessness. I have what
should be a tediously obvious, but seemingly revolutionary, view;
that Africans are as human as the rest of us but have different
cultural and economic standards. After all if we can accept that
of the Chinese, Indians or the Russians what is the difference with
Africa?
A
BLACK VERSAILLES
One
of the main perceived sources of conflict have been the borders
drawn up by the European imperial powers. It is true that some of
the rationale for drawing the borders was bizarre. Mount Kilamanjaro
was a birthday present from Queen Victoria to her favourite nephew,
the German Kaiser, which is why it is in Tanzania rather than Kenya.
However, this particular pudding is over-egged. Few borders were
drawn on maps, following lines of latitude or longitude. Most of
these arbitrary borders followed geographic features, mainly rivers,
which is not a purely African phenomenon. The idea that Sudan
or Somalia
will be settled by some judiciously drawn borders ignores the fact
that the peoples of Africa are far more intermingled
than it seems from State Department maps. Somalia
in fact should be one of the most peaceful countries; they are of
the same ethnic group, are all Muslim and speak the same language.
Of course, some borders could be revised, but the West is not the
best judge of local desires.
GOOD
BORDERS DON'T ALWAYS MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS
The
present conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia has shown that redrawing
borders on more ethnic lines is not always a way to peace. In what
seems like a lifetime ago the brutal Marxist dictator of Ethiopia,
Mengistu, was replaced by an army of reformed Marxists, the backbone
of which were provided by separatists in the north west provinces
of Tigre and Ethiopia. During the post-liberation euphoria, Eritrea
was given her independence. Now the
world's largest conventional war is being fought ostensibly
over stretches
of semi-arid farmland, but in reality by Eritrea's
control of landlocked Ethiopia's trade. The borders are more
logical than ten years ago, but it does not make for peace.
THE
CAPITALISM CURE ALL
Of
course, we are told, Africa's real problem is her lack
of capitalism. If only Africans embraced the market, then peace
and democracy would follow like night and day. As a rather radical
capitalist, I should agree with this. I don't. The fact is that
for capitalism to be successful it has to be accepted, otherwise
it will be overthrown. Capitalism when it has been imposed on Africa
has often become a lawless parody of capitalism, as in the Kleptocracy
of Mobutu's
Zaire. Similarly democracy is not necessarily always going to
work on the same template, remember that Zimbabwe is in fact one
of the more democratic
countries in Africa. The cultural roots of a democratic and
capitalist society are much deeper than listening to the lectures
of Tony Blair or the IMF. That's not to say that capitalism can't
take root in Africa, but just like with democracy it will have to
do so in its own time, and in its own way. Where capitalism has
been imposed it has created it's own problems, as in Kenya
which is going through it's own land crisis. The fact that imposing
capitalism kills far fewer people than imposing socialism is not
a reason to impose it. Far better for Africans to accept capitalism
and democracy on their own terms and in their own time, much as
Europe and North America did.
THE
WEALTH GAP
Africa
is poor, that's why they fight and suppress their people. This is
what we are often told. The solution, we are also told is to give
more aid and to forgive debts. Will this really work? The short
answer is, if it does it should have done so by now. An example
is Ethiopia, which gets a large amount of aid from the west, while
also fighting a war with Eritrea. It regards the war
with Eritrea as more important than feeding its own civilians,
and therefore depends on Western Aid to do so. In one crucial respect,
Western aid is helping to prolong a war. Debt relief is also going
to prove very popular – with the manufacturers of military hardware.
The economist Lord Bauer once commented that foreign aid was a very
effective way of taking money from poor people in rich countries
to give it to rich people in poor countries. To keep on giving money
to African governments to help her become sensible is a foolish
course of action, like giving
money to a drug addict in the hope that he will use it to build
a better life.
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